RSS worker, family killed in Bengal

Tanmay Sarkar, Additional Superintendent of Police, Lalbagh subdivision, addressing the media on the triple murders in Murshidabad district of West Bengal.

The gruesome murder of an RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) worker and his entire family, including his eight-yearold son and pregnant wife, in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, has sent shockwaves across the State. On October 8, the blood-stained bodies of 35-year-old primary schoolteacher Bondhu Gopal Pal, his 30-year-old wife, Beauty, and their eight-year-old son Angan, were discovered in their residence. Beauty was pregnant with the couple’s second child.

As of October 10, neither the police nor the RSS has claimed that the murders are political in nature. Tanmay Sarkar, the Additional Superintendent of Police, Lalbagh subdivision, told reporters that it was still too early to say anything with certainty regarding the motive behind the murders. “We have inspected the scene of the crime and it appears that the perpetrators of the crime were known to the victim as there was little or no resistance,” he said. According to Sarkar, a note apparently written by Beauty Pal seems to suggest “some dispute in the family.”

Condemning the killings, a press release from Raj Bhavan said, “The incident, according to the Governor (Jagdeep Dhankar), has shocked the conscience on account of its enormity. This is reflective of intolerance and worrisome law and order situation.” The press release also came down heavily upon the police and the state administration, saying the Governor “expressed his unhappiness that in spite of enough time having gone by there has been no concern expressed by the police or the State functionaries over such a serious issue.”

Although it is yet to be ascertained whether the killing of Pal’s entire family was politically motivated, the fact that political murders continue unabated in West Bengal cannot be denied. The violence persisted even during the Durga Puja festivities. On the same day that Pal’s family was massacred in Murshidabad, a Trinamool worker, Raju Kurmi, was shot dead outside his house in North 24 Paraganas district. On the night of October 7, Trinamool leader Kurban Shah of Purbo Medinipur district was killed inside his party office. According to reports, miscreants arrived in two motorbikes outside the Trinamool party office in Panskura, where Kurban was present, and shot him dead at point blank range.